Actually, I don’t sleep, since I am a blogger and, as you all must realize by now, a sparkly vampire, too.

Thus, like the undead, we’ll be reanimated in another form and with a new name right quick. And, not to worry, the archives of what we have written since mid-2007 will also forever remain as definitive proof that we existed, thanks to the hard workers at the NSA in its ongoing quest to suck every digital scrap it can find!

But before The Wall Street Journal redirects this site’s URL to its own tech coverage, here are some stories by John Paczkowski, the very first editorial hire Walt Mossberg and I made here, as well as some choice bits by me over the years (Yahoo, Yahoo and, well, mebbe some Yahoo, too!).

Key lines: “With handheld sales that fell by more than half year-over-year in its first quarter, HP is surely looking for a way to revive them and capture a larger portion of the important mobile market. Acquiring Palm could be a good way to do it.”

Key lines: “Google had finally acknowledged that its search results were no longer solely and automatically determined by the company’s vaunted algorithms. Now they simply “relied heavily” on them. Why the sudden change?”

Key lines: “Despite a slew of evidence to the contrary — plunging market share, rapidly deteriorating fundamentals, mass layoffs and a stock that’s falling like a knife, Research In Motion’s got a bright future ahead of it. This according to CEO Thorsten Heins, who says RIM is headed for a rebound, not certain doom. In fact, he crowed in an op-ed piece in the Globe and Mail, ‘We expect to empower people as never before.'”

Key lines: “Here’s a potentially noteworthy development in the patent litigation-riddled mobile device market. Last week, the United States Patent and Trademark Office issued a very broad patent on motion-based smartphone control, one that could have significant implications for the industry.”

“One could say hindsight is 20-20, of course, but what made me sad about the sale — and I was very sad when I heard of it — was that these laudable and smart people could not seem to figure it out, and had to turn to a magical Internet wizard to do so. In the coverage, that sentiment was echoed again and again — that you would somehow conjure up a series of fantastic new news products that would capture the imagination of all and return the paper to its former glory.”

Key lines: “[CEO Carol] Bartz then asked the question: ‘What have we done to re-engineer Yahoo?’ She reeled off a list she has repeated many times before, the point of which was to let us all know she has been mighty busy cleaning up the big mess she had to deal with on arrival. So lay off, all you naysayers! It’s kind of like what President Barack Obama is saying these days, as he looks forward to huge political losses in the upcoming election. It’s apparently a disciplined approach. “First you walk, then you run.’ Then, she added, you FLY! Don’t look down, Carol!”

Key lines: “‘Your bachelor’s degree is in accounting and computer science. Now, from both of those, I mean that’s, that’s pretty obvious that’s PayPal,’ said [Moira] Gunn. ‘What are the most important things you learned?’ ‘Yeah,’ begins [Yahoo CEO Scott] Thompson, failing to correct her at all on the fact that he does not actually have a computer science degree — only one in accounting.”

Key lines: “First, my initial reaction when I first heard about the deal: Ugh. Sigh. Hopelessly corrupt. Now 100 percent more icky! A giant, greedy, Silicon Valley pig pile. I was upset. By early evening, after my kids told me to chillax, my dark mood had changed to accept that the transaction — however profoundly distasteful to me — was part and parcel of the insidious log-rolling, back-scratching ecosystem that has happened in every other center of power in the universe since the beginning of time. And so it goes in Silicon Valley.”

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20131230/how-can-you-miss-us-if-we-wont-go-away-paczkowski-and-swisher-highlights-from-allthingsd/feed/0Five Tips for Getting Started With Windows 8.1http://allthingsd.com/20131114/five-tips-for-getting-started-with-windows-8-1/
http://allthingsd.com/20131114/five-tips-for-getting-started-with-windows-8-1/#commentsThu, 14 Nov 2013 14:00:03 +0000http://allthingsd.com/?p=372686Change is always hard. We get accustomed to doing things one way, and when something comes along to mess that up, our natural reaction is to revolt.

It’s no surprise, then, that Microsoft didn’t get the warmest reception when it released Windows 8 last year. Designed to be an all-in-one operating system for both PCs and tablets, Windows 8 was a stark departure from previous versions of the OS, and required a steep learning curve that involved juggling between two interfaces and giving up some familiar favorites like the Start button, among other things.

To address some of those issues, last month Microsoft released Windows 8.1. The update brings a series of tweaks and new features that generally make the OS better — though, if you found Windows 8 confusing, you still will in this new version. But, since this is the future of Windows-based machines, it might be time to learn some of the ins and outs of the OS. To help you out, I’ve outlined some tips for using Windows 8.1.

One note before getting started: Windows 8.1 is available as a free download to Windows 8 users. Those with older versions of Windows will have to pay $120 to upgrade, and their machines have to meet the minimum system requirements. If you fall into the latter group, it might be better to hold off until you need to upgrade your hardware.

Make It Personal

When you first boot up Windows 8.1, you won’t notice a huge difference between the latest update and Windows 8. You still get the tile-based Start screen, but it’s a lot more customizable than the previous version.

For example, you can now change the background image by accessing the Charms menu (to do so, swipe in from the right side of the screen, or point to the lower- or upper-right corner if you’re using a mouse), selecting Settings, and then Personalize. Meanwhile, right-clicking or doing a long-press on a tile brings up options to resize it (large, wide, medium or small), remove it from the Start screen, and more.

A quick swipe up from the bottom of the screen (or clicking on the down arrow in the bottom-left if you’re using a mouse) also brings up a view of all your Apps. You can make this your default Start screen by swiping in from the right side of the screen, selecting Search, and then typing “Taskbar.” From there, select the Navigation tab, and then check the box that says, “Show the Apps view automatically when I go to Start.”

For those who aren’t ready let go of the past just yet, Windows 8.1 now gives you an option to boot directly to traditional desktop mode. The setting is hard to find, though, so be sure to check out my colleague Walt Mossberg’s explainer on how to enable that feature.

A New Start (Sort Of)

One of the more welcome features is the return of the Start button.

When you switch to desktop mode, you’ll find it in the bottom-left-hand corner, but it doesn’t function in exactly the same way as before. Tapping or clicking will simply return you to the modern tile-based Start screen, rather than launching the traditional Start menu.

If you right-click on it or do a long press, however, you’ll get a pop-up window that provides access to tools like the control panel, task manager and shutdown/restart. There are also other utilities, including Programs and Features, where you can uninstall or change desktop apps and Power Options for customizing your battery settings.

Multitasking Using Snap View

Windows 8 already offered a function called Snap View that allowed you to view two apps at once, but the screen was split so that one app took up a majority of the room, while the other only took up about a third of screen space. This made it difficult to see or interact with anything in the smaller window. But with Windows 8.1, you can now split the screen to your liking.

To begin, start by opening an app from the Start screen or the Apps-view screen. Next, slide your finger from the top of the screen down to about the middle of the display, or until the app window shrinks. Then move the app to either the left or right side of the screen.

Afterward, you can return to the Start or Apps screen to open your second app, and it will automatically appear next to the first app. By default, Snap View splits the screen in half, but you can change that by dragging the black bar that separates the two apps to the right or the left.

Depending on your screen’s resolution, you can have up to four apps open at once.

Changing Default Apps

Naturally, Microsoft would love for you to use its native apps (Internet Explorer, Xbox Music, and so forth) for all your tasks, but if you have a preference for a certain Web browser, email client or mapping app, Windows 8.1 will allow you to set them as your default.

To do so, open the Charms menu, select Settings, and then Change PC Settings. Next, click on Search and Apps, and choose Defaults at the bottom of the list. Here you can select which apps you would like to use for Web browsing, email, music, video, photos, calendar and maps.

Turn a Website Into an Xbox Music Playlist

I thought I’d end with a fun one. Windows 8.1 offers a pretty nifty feature that allows you to create a playlist in Microsoft’s music app, Xbox Music, based on a website. Yes, you read right — a website.

Just visit any page that talks about music or musicians (for example, I went to hip-hop site Okayplayer.com), open the Charms menu, select Share, and then Music. After a couple of minutes, you’ll see a playlist created based on artists or songs mentioned on the website. Give the playlist a name and tap Create Playlist, and the next time you open Xbox Music, you’ll find it saved under the playlist section.

Windows 8.1 might still have some fundamental problems — it’s still very much geared for touch devices, and the number of Windows 8 apps needs to grow — but the update brings some nice improvements. And if you plan on continuing to live in a Windows world, you will need to learn the new OS at some point, so you might as well start now.

Thanks for explaining how to use the new-style Intel Inside sticker to find a laptop with the latest Intel chip. But what if I’m shopping online, where they usually don’t show the sticker?

A:

Besides the sticker, there are two ways to tell if the PC or Mac you are considering has the latest Intel Core processor, which boosts battery life. One is to look for the words “Fourth Generation” or “4th gen” or even “Haswell” (the chip’s code name) in the description of the processor. The other is to check what Intel calls the processor number, which follows the chip’s name, to make sure it starts with the number 4. One example might be Intel Core i5 — 4300M.

Q:

Apple’s iTunes Genius feature is getting on my nerves, because, when I sync my device, it takes up time syncing “Genius data.” What does Genius do and how can I turn it off?

A:

Genius is a free, optional feature that can create mixes or playlists based on songs in your music library. The data that is synced is used to update the playlist-creation algorithms about changes to your library. If you don’t use Genius or like it, you can turn it off by going to iTunes on your computer, selecting the Store menu, and clicking on “Turn Off Genius.” Note: These menu items won’t be available if you use iTunes Match, a separate, paid service that stores your music in the cloud.

Q:

I need a new laptop and I want Windows, but I don’t want to get one with Windows 8, or Windows 8.1. Is it still possible to buy a laptop with Windows 7?

A:

Yes. They are getting scarcer, but you can find them at both stores and online. I saw a few in a Micro Center chain store about 10 days ago. Checking on the chain’s website, I see more, from $350 to over $1,000. But many listings indicate a limited number remain in stock.

I’m referring, of course, to Mavericks OS X, the new operating system for Mac computers. It’s Apple’s 10th OS X operating system and it’s the first one in many years without a large-feline moniker, named instead after famously formidable surfing waves off the coast of California.

More notably, Mavericks — or OS X 10.9 — is free for Mac users to download. In fact, there’s a lot of free software being thrown out there by Apple. (The hardware will still cost you plenty.)

Since the OS is a free upgrade, this column is not about whether the upgrade is “worth it.” Instead, I’ve focused on a handful of key features that consumers can expect with Mavericks. Some of them are useful. Others feel obvious, because, in some cases, Apple is playing catch-up.

To start, Apple said that Mavericks will only run on machines from 2009 and later, though it might work on some computers from as far back as 2007. You’ll also need at least two gigabytes of RAM, and two hours of your time to complete the Mavericks install process. In my experience, the installation on my 2012, 13-inch MacBook Pro took closer to two and a half hours.

Battery Optimization

Okay, you’ve installed Mavericks. Now what? Well, Apple claims you can expect better battery life while Web browsing or watching an iTunes movie. At a launch event last week, the company used words like “timer coalescing” and “compressed memory,” which is enough to make any non-techie’s head hurt. Basically, this means that the new software groups tasks together so the processor can remain in an idle, low-power state more often.

I ran three battery tests using AllThingsD’s usual method, which includes setting the display to 100 percent brightness, playing iTunes music on a loop, leaving Wi-Fi on, running a Mail client, and never allowing the computer to sleep. My 2012 MacBook Pro running Mountain Lion lasted five hours and 13 minutes. Then I installed Mavericks, and started again. This time it lasted five hours and 20 minutes – not much of a difference, but then again, I wasn’t really taxing the computer.

A brand-new MacBook Pro with Intel’s Haswell chip and the Mavericks OS, however, lasted for seven hours and 13 minutes. So it was the combination of new hardware and new software that gave the more impressive results.

Finder Tabs and Tags

This is one of those features that seems small and obvious, and yet the organizational freak in me is still happy that Apple has added it. You can now create tabs within the Finder window, and share files by dragging them to the desired Finder tab, instead of cluttering your desktop with multiple juxtaposed Finder windows. You can also assign colors and tags, or keywords, to folders and files to make them inherently more searchable.

Shared Links in Safari

Improvements to the Safari browser are also small but welcome. There is now a sidebar on the left-hand side of the browser that displays three tabs: Bookmarks (not new), Reading List (also not new, but improved), and Shared Links.

A sidebar on the left-hand side of the Safari browser now shows links from the people you follow on Twitter and LinkedIn.

If you link your Twitter account through System Preferences, tweets with links will appear under the Shared Links tab in Safari. It can also show links from the people you follow on LinkedIn.

If you click on those links, the relevant tweet or story will immediately appear in the Safari browser. Scrolling down will show you the previously shared story in your Shared Links list, and the one before that, and so on. And you can retweet from Shared Links.

I’d like this feature more if it were a real-time Twitter feed; as it is now, the Shared Links feed in Safari is designed to be refreshed manually, not automatically, so you have to hit Command+R to see new links. I do like the more noticeable Reading List, though, which works online or offline, and can be accessed from mobile, as well.

iCloud KeyChain

ICloud Keychain is basically a password manager that also saves your credit card information. So, it suggested multi-character passwords to me as I was creating accounts on websites like Pottery Barn and ModCloth, and asked if I wanted to save those passwords within Safari. (On Sephora.com, however, I was told that passwords wouldn’t be saved because of a request by Sephora.)

The credit card info you normally type in can be saved in Safari, as well, and accessed on your iOS 7 iPad or iPhone. It’s the first time Apple is storing your credit card info at this level of the online buying process, and they say that it’s secure and can’t be viewed by Apple.

Mavericks now lets you fully expand apps on a secondary screen, while still running Finder, a browser or other apps on the main screen.

Gilt is one of Apple’s early partners with this, so I logged in to Gilt, opted into notifications through Mavericks, and shopped. With my first purchase, I still had to fill out my personal billing and shipping information on the Web.

But then I was asked through a drop-down in Safari if I wanted Safari to save my credit card information for use with other websites. With my next purchase, I shopped from my desktop, then later on picked up my iPhone, opened the Gilt app, and through a one-step checkout, completed the purchase on that device.

Multiple Displays

Before, you could easily hook up and “mirror” a Mac computer to an external display. But everything on the device of origin — the dock, apps and open windows — would just appear on another screen. Now, Mavericks offers multiple viewing options from the same machine.

I was able to create extra desktop real estate — and not just mirror my computer desktop screen — on my TV, using Apple TV. On my laptop, I still had my dock, my email and a finder window. Then, on the TV, I was running PowerPoint or Final Cut Pro, and could view that application in full screen. This will also work on a standard secondary computer monitor.

Apple Maps on a Mavericks desktop lets you send directions directly from the desktop to an iPhone, provided it’s running iOS 7.

There are some other new items to consider with Mavericks. Apple is now offering new versions of its iWork and iLife apps for free, provided that you’ve purchased a brand-new device as of Sept. 1, or you were an existing owner of the apps. Apple is touting features like cloud collaboration through Pages in iWork, but this is pretty belated, since Microsoft and Google already offer cloud collaboration through their apps.

Pages, Keynote and Numbers are also more intuitive and consumer-friendly, but some power users are complaining that legacy features are missing.

Mavericks also includes a desktop Maps app, which Apple has never done before. This allows you to search for directions on the desktop and, with the click of a share button, send them immediately to your iPhone (which has to be running iOS 7). This isn’t a new idea, however: Google has offered consumers the ability to send directions from its Chrome browser to Android phones for a while now.

The OS isn’t without its early glitches. Some Mavericks users have said they’re experiencing problems with the desktop Mail client, and that their Gmail isn’t loading through the app. Others are encountering problems with “smart” mailboxes — like one that collects all unread messages across multiple accounts. Apple plans to issue a software update for this, the company said.

Mavericks isn’t as monumental an upgrade as its name might suggest, but overall it brings some welcome additions. Assuming that Apple fixes the Mail problems, I see no reason not to ride the wave.

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20131028/five-key-features-of-mavericks-apples-new-operating-system-for-macs/feed/0Microsoft Q1 Unveiled Today, but Don't Expect an October Surprise for New CEO (See You in December)http://allthingsd.com/20131024/microsoft-q1-unveiled-today-but-dont-expect-an-october-surprise-for-new-ceo-see-you-in-december/
http://allthingsd.com/20131024/microsoft-q1-unveiled-today-but-dont-expect-an-october-surprise-for-new-ceo-see-you-in-december/#commentsThu, 24 Oct 2013 17:30:14 +0000http://allthingsd.com/?p=368007

As AllThingsD and others have previously reported, the selection of a new leader to replace outgoing CEO Steve Ballmer is likely to take at least until the end of the year. While that could change, of course, a number of candidates — from an outsider like Ford CEO Alan Mulally to an insider such as Tony Bates — are still being considered and vetted.

And that’s why it’s going to be hard to know exactly what direction the company will actually take in the coming year, beyond Ballmer’s refocusing its strategy around “One Microsoft” and the devices-and-services meme.

But that doesn’t mean there will not be a lot to talk about, including upcoming releases such as a new Surface tablet, changes to its Windows operating system and the launch of the Xbox One.

The upcoming products follow a time of massive change at Microsoft, including the Ballmer reorg and departure news, and also the $7 billion acquisition of Nokia’s phone-and-devices business to bolster Windows Phone’s fight to survive in a mobile world dominated by Apple and Google.

Also important to watch in Microsoft’s report will be any news of how it is doing with its enterprise efforts, including the move of its products and services to the cloud.

That, too, will be an issue for the new CEO, as well as the fate of its search advertising partnership with Yahoo, how to stop losing money in its online services division, and what its future holds as PC use continues its decline in the home and workplace.

Come to think of it: Who’s crazy enough to take the top job?

Until we know more, here’s what Wall Street analysts expect in Q1 from the Redmond, Wash., company: Earnings of 54 cents per share on revenue of $17.8 billion, which compares to 53 cents on revenue of $16 billion in the same period a year ago.

One good piece of news: Microsoft’s stock is up about 30 percent so far this year.

Apple at its fall event today focused primarily on new operating-system features geared toward the power user, like extended battery life, compressed memory and integrated graphics. But it the new OS, called Mavericks, is also free. It’s available in a single-step update, even for Macs from 2007. It launches today.

Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, Craig Federighi, walked through some of the new features of the operating system, which is the 10th in Apple’s OS X history, and the first of the lot that doesn’t have a “big cat” name.

Mavericks OS X 10.9 has, among other features:

Finder tabs, allowing users to draw all finder windows together in tabs or drag content across tabs. The finder window can go full-screen now, too.

Tagging, so you can add tag words like “important” or “work” or “personal,” when you save documents and other files in Mac. This is supposed to make search better, too.

Multiple displays. You can get at your menus across multiple displays, and when you take a window full-screen on one display, it doesn’t “mess with your other displays.”

Really, we saw most of these already at Apple’s developer conference this past June. But Federighi went a little more in-depth this time, showing the improved display and categorization of Finder windows, tagged documents, and features like shared links and reader view in Safari, meant to improve the news-reading experience.

Did I mention that it’s free?

This is all part of Apple’s master plan of using software and apps to, well, sell more hardware. “Apple has gone all in on the ‘integrated hardware/software’ product strategy,” says Carl Howe, consumer research analyst at Yankee Group. “The company always has, but now the business model is fully committed.”

Apple’s previous operating system, Mountain Lion OS X, was the best-selling Mac OS release of all time, according to Apple, with 28 million copies shipped. As of June, 35 percent of Mac users were using the latest version of the OS, Apple CEO Tim Cook said at the time. (You crazy early adopters, you.)

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20131022/apples-new-mavericks-os-x-free-thats-right-free/feed/0Valve Unveils Its SteamOS "Cooperating System"http://allthingsd.com/20130923/valve-unveils-its-steamos-cooperating-system/
http://allthingsd.com/20130923/valve-unveils-its-steamos-cooperating-system/#commentsMon, 23 Sep 2013 17:41:23 +0000http://allthingsd.com/?p=360269Valve is expected to make a trio of big announcements about its PC gaming platform Steam this week, and Monday brought the first. Moments ago, the company uncrated SteamOS, a gaming operating system and a bold play for the living room.

Built on Linux, SteamOS extends Steam’s game-distribution platform to the TV, with a feature set intended to support that — in-home streaming and some not-yet-announced media service partnerships that will add video and music streaming to the OS, as well. Valve is touting it as an open, collaborative OS, a “cooperating system.”

“Steam is not a one-way content broadcast channel, it’s a collaborative many-to-many entertainment platform, in which each participant is a multiplier of the experience for everyone else,” the company explained. “With SteamOS, ‘openness’ means that the hardware industry can iterate in the living room at a much faster pace than they’ve been able to. Content creators can connect directly to their customers. Users can alter or replace any part of the software or hardware they want. Gamers are empowered to join in the creation of the games they love. SteamOS will continue to evolve, but will remain an environment designed to foster these kinds of innovation.”

An interesting approach to living-room gaming, certainly very different from the ones taken by proprietary console platforms like Xbox and PlayStation.

Valve plans to make SteamOS available as a free download for users and as a freely licensable OS for manufacturers interested in developing living-room gaming machines around it, though it hasn’t yet announced a hard date for that.

According to sources close to the situation, Flipboard has raised $50 million in new funding, in a round led by Rizvi Traverse Management and Goldman Sachs.

The new funding puts the valuation of the Silicon Valley startup that makes the popular social reading service at $800 million, said sources.

Flipboard declined to comment on any recent fundraising, which I have been tracking for some time, after I heard that big private equity firms were sniffing around the deal. Rizvi, a multibillion-dollar investment fund which is run by under-the-radar Suhail Rizvi, has investments in Twitter, Facebook and, most recently, Square.

In addition, sources said, current investors, including venture firms Kleiner Perkins and Index Ventures, are also participating, while Insight Venture Partners is taking an even larger stake in Flipboard.

Co-founded by longtime entrepreneur Mike McCue and former Apple iPhone engineer Evan Doll in 2010, Flipboard has been attempting to make online content consumption more accessible and, perhaps most importantly, visually arresting, via its rich app. It pulls information from media feeds and social sites, such as Twitter and Facebook data streams, and then reassembles it in an easy-to-navigate, personalized format in a mobile — and now a desktop — touchscreen environment.

Over the last several years, Flipboard has evolved quickly to add more features, such as a recent one that allows users and publishers to create their own online “magazines” of favorite content. McCue recently said that three million such magazines have been created.

For example, Random House said last week that it will be making two such custom digital magazines for fans of the writers George R.R. Martin and Margaret Atwood, his on his popular “Song of Ice and Fire” books, and hers on her new novel, “MaddAdam.”

After starting on the Apple iOS platform, Flipboard has also created apps for more devices, and also for the Google Android mobile operating system. It is likely to also develop an app for Microsoft’s Windows Phone.

Flipboard has a myriad of competitors, including Google’s Currents, as well as smaller mostly media-focused reading apps like Zite, Circa and others.

But Flipboard is the most high-profile and popular, with McCue saying recently that it has 85 million users. Its revenue is derived from advertising splits with publishers for ads it places on Flipboard pages, although it is not clear how lucrative that business is as yet.

Apple brings out a new top-of-the-line iPhone model every year, but a redesign only every other year. In the intervening cycles, the company tends to keep the phone’s exterior the same, but changes the innards and the software. This is one of those in-between years, but the new iPhone 5s has a potentially game-changing hardware feature and a radically new operating system.

The iPhone 5s’s reliable, easy Touch ID.

The iPhone 5s is the first digital device I’ve seen with a simple, reliable fingerprint reader — one you can confidently use, without a thought, to unlock the device instead of typing in a passcode. You can even use this fingerprint reader, called Touch ID, to authorize purchases from Apple’s App, iTunes and e-book stores.

It sounds like a gimmick, but it’s a real advance, the biggest step ever in biometric authentication for everyday devices. After using Touch ID, I found it annoying to go back to typing in passcodes on my older iPhone.

The new iPhone 5s, which starts at $199 with a two-year contract and goes on sale for all major carriers on Friday, has a beefier processor that Apple says can double its performance. And it has a better camera.

Then there’s the new operating system on this phone, called iOS 7. Its new look, new user interface and new functions represent the biggest overhaul to the iPhone’s core software since the original model launched in 2007. Nearly everything has been improved, including multi-tasking, notifications, access to common controls, email, Web browsing and Siri. Like any big change, it’s a shock at first, but I have come to like it and consider it a step forward, despite a few issues.

The new iOS 7 won’t just be limited to the 5s, or Apple’s other new iPhone, the $99 iPhone 5c. It’ll be a free, optional download starting on Wednesday for many older model iPhones and iPads.

After a week of testing the iPhone 5s, I like it and can recommend it for anyone looking for a premium, advanced smartphone. If you are an iPhone fan with any model older than the iPhone 5, the new 5s will be a big step up. If you own an iPhone 5, there’s less of a case for upgrading, unless you want the fingerprint reader and improved camera. You can get the new OS free of charge.

iOS 7 has simpler-looking icons.

Hardware

The Touch ID fingerprint sensor is built into the iPhone’s familiar, round Home button. To use it, you must first set up a passcode as a backup and then go through a brief training session for each finger you want to use. There have been laptops and at least one other phone with fingerprint sensors, but they have generally been unreliable and people tended to stop using them. Apple is using a different technology that turns the Home button (which still performs its usual functions) into a rapid, accurate finger scanner.

A steel ring around the button detects your finger and then a sensor scans it. This sensor can identify your finger even if it’s off-center or when the phone is in any position. It looks beneath the outer layer of skin, a capability Apple says means it won’t work with dead tissue, such as a severed finger or a plastic fingerprint imprint — favorite security workarounds seen in the movies. The detection process only takes a second or two.

In my scores of tests, with three fingers, the reader never failed me and none of the 20 or so people I asked to test it was able to unlock the phone. If a finger match fails three times, the phone offers you a chance to type in your passcode instead. After five failures, it requires the passcode. Apple says the odds another person’s finger would work are 1 in 50,000, versus 1 in 10,000 for breaking a four-digit passcode.

There is one bug in the system: Sometimes, while trying to use a finger to authenticate an online purchase, the phone asks for a password. Apple says it expects to fix this bug very quickly.

The iPhone 5s boasts something called a 64-bit processor, which means the system can process data in bigger chunks, and thus much faster. But I didn’t notice any dramatic speed improvement, partly because few apps have yet to be rewritten to take advantage of it.

The new camera is still 8 megapixels, but has a bigger sensor that allows for larger pixels that can capture more light and color information. It has a lens that lets in more light and a flash that allows for warmer tones in low light. All my pictures were slightly sharper than on the iPhone 5 and low-light pictures were much less washed out by the flash. The camera app has been improved, with a new burst mode that takes many shots quickly and then picks the best ones, and a slow-motion video feature that lets you choose parts of an action sequence to slow down. It worked seamlessly.

Voice calls were excellent, even over Bluetooth in a car. I didn’t do a formal battery test, but the iPhone 5s lasted a full workday, including one day where it still had 15 percent of battery left after 14 hours.

iOS 7 gives an overview of your day, such as weather and schedule.

Operating System

There are too many new features in iOS 7 to list here, but it’s a big improvement. The icons have been redesigned to be flatter and simpler, but they appear to float over your wallpaper, giving the effect of depth. Many elements are translucent, subtly changing shades to match the wallpaper color.

The fonts are sharper, finer and more delicate. Buttons and controls are thinner and lighter and, in the browser, they disappear or shrink to make a little more room for content. Overall, the effect is to make the 4-inch screen seem larger.

Any app now can be set to update in the background, though the system learns the ones you use most often and updates them intelligently to save battery.

The phone now shows you thumbnails of every running app and you can quit any of them by just flicking upward, as in Palm’s now-dead WebOS operating system.

The browser shows a stack of open tabs.

The notification panel, which pulls down from the top, now gives you an overview of your day, including weather and schedule.

And, taking a page from Android, the iPhone now has a quick-settings Control Center that pulls up from the bottom to control Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, music, brightness and other features. It even can turn on a flashlight function.

The browser gives you a handsome graphical view of open tabs and the email program now downloads thousands of messages at once, letting you mark them all as read with a few clicks.

I found Siri to be more accurate and useful. It now has an almost human voice and can glean answers from Bing, Twitter and Wikipedia.

The photos app now automatically groups your camera roll by time and place. You can send photos with one tap to other iOS users nearby.

In iTunes, there’s now a Pandora-like radio feature.

My biggest disappointment is that there have been only minor improvements to the keyboard. Unlike in Android, Apple still bars you from substituting third-party keyboards with better auto-correction. The company says this is due to security worries.

Overall, however, the new iPhone 5s is a delight. Its hardware and software make it the best smartphone on the market.

“First, let’s begin with the name,” said Hugo Barra to me, in his first extended interview since he was named new head of global for Xiaomi a little over two weeks ago. “Think of ‘show me,’ and then pronounce the first word as if it was ‘shower.'”

Barra’s last day at Google as head of product management at its key Android mobile unit was in September, but he’s already enthusiastically trying to get the rest of the world to know a lot more about the upstart phone maker that has been called the “Apple of China,” but that has hopes to be more compared to Google or Amazon in the future.

It is now Barra’s job to help make that happen, armed with a pile of Xiaomi phones he whips out to demo at a moment’s notice.

His departure was a big moment for both the tech giant and Barra, who has been there since 2008, as well as for Xiaomi. Barra is its first major non-Chinese hire, as it seeks to expand beyond its root in a bid to become a globally recognized player.

Hiring Barra — who had become one of the more public faces of Android — was its most high-profile step so far. He was the exec that Google chose to show off the recent Nexus 7, and has been a key lieutenant to both former Android chief Andy Rubin and the recently named head, Sundar Pichai.

Now he is poised to take over all of global expansion for Xiaomi, which currently only builds Android phones for the Chinese market, using an innovative strategy of making high-spec smartphones at low-spec smartphone prices.

Unfortunately for Barra, the news came out at the same time a personal controversy at Google became public. A Googler he had recently ended a relationship with is now seeing the company’s co-founder, Sergey Brin, who has split with his wife.

While Barra declined to talk about that thorny situation and its unfortunate timing, he did give more details on his Google exit, which he underscored had been long planned, with talks with Xiaomi that were ongoing for more than a year.

In fact, the seeds of it began much further back, almost from when Barra came to Google after spending more than four years at voice leader Nuance. When he was hired to work on Google’s mobile effort, then run by Vic Gundotra, Barra worked in its Europe office, part of a worldwide effort.

“We had teams all over, but every quarter we had this thing called the mobile leadership summit, where we did project reviews and strategy sessions,” recalled Barra. “Coincidentally, on my second day at Google, I was on a plane flying to Beijing, where we were having that particular quarter’s meeting.”

It was there that he met Xiaomi president Bin Lin, who then ran engineering for Google’s mobile unit in China. It was the start of a working relationship that then was developed over years.

Then Googlers — Bin Lin, Vic Gundotra and Barra in China several years ago.

At the end of 2010, Barra moved to the Android team at Google’s Mountain View, Calif., HQ, working for Rubin. And by then Lin had left Google and started Xiaomi with some key Google engineers and product managers.

“Because I was a member of the Android team, I had a keen interest in what they were doing,” said Barra. “And what they were doing was pretty phenomenal.”

What the upstart was focused on was creating another new flavor of Android, as many others had. But, said Barra, “even though it was a fork, it was a fully compatible fork.”

Intrigued by the level of quality and innovation, Barra said, “I always visited them in Beijing. And then they started making phones and I started bringing back phones with me to show them off at Google.”

He was even more interested when Android design head Matias Duarte told him he thought Xiaomi had done one of the best jobs of anyone extending the Android platform.

“It was a distinctively important moment for me,” Barra remembered. “Matias’s opinion really mattered a lot, and it was a big signal they were doing something right, and a pretty significant vote of confidence.”

Also key was a close friend and well-known investor in China, Robin Chan. He was an early Xiaomi investor, too, and ended up being the person who helped start the conversation between the company and Barra to consider going there.

Talks started in the summer of 2012, just as Xiaomi was getting traction with a major release of its second phone, the Mi2s.

“At first, their questions were, ‘How do you think we should go about expanding internationally?’ And that evolved into, ‘Maybe you should come help us,'” recalled Barra.

What was most compelling to Barra was that Lin wanted a product person to lead Xiaomi’s global expansion. “I am not the business guy, but he wanted someone with deep user insight to lead that effort,” said Barra.

Xiaomi Mi2s smartphones

The informal talks went on for about six months, and heated up early this year. While Barra claims he was happy at Google, the opportunity in China seemed more ripe with possibility.

“To me, right away, it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, truly a dream job, this idea of building a global company which could be as significant as Google, from the ground up,” said Barra. “It was just something that I will never come across, with a team whom I know, with a company that has DNA similar to my own and, on top of that, to live in Asia for at least some period of time.”

Barra decided it was time to tell Google, which had just replaced Rubin with Pichai. “I really wanted it to be an open and transparent discussion in the interests of all parties involved,” said Barra. “And, for Xiaomi, Google is the most important partner it has.”

Perhaps even more important for Google, though, was to make sure that there were strong Android players in the Chinese market, especially after setbacks at HTC and a more Wild West situation for the mobile operating system there.

Having an insider like Barra at the up-and-coming Xiaomi, in fact, might not be such a bad thing.

“It was an interesting three-way conversation,” he said. “But, I think it came down to, if you’re going to lose someone from the team, you might as well lose them to a friend.”

In any case, by then Barra was nearly out the door, waiting until Nexus 7 had landed and Android’s latest version, Kit Kat, was out the door, too.

“This was another level for me, so I did not really have to think about it a lot,” he said. “Now I have to learn how to run a real business, operationally standing it up on its legs.”

That business is a hard-charging and highly competitive one, born from a group of eight founders, all of whom are still in key positions at the company. That includes Lin and, of course, its high-profile CEO and star Chinese entrepreneur Lei Jun.

Barra said that Jun’s focus on three parts of the mobile ecosystem — hardware, software and services, which he has dubbed a “triathlon” — at the same time has been a key part of Xiaomi’s success.

“They are a company building hardware like it was software,” said Barra. “It’s about small teams, really scrappy, that iterate, iterate, iterate.”

Wang Zhao/AFP/Getty Barra and Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun onstage in Beijing at launch of Mi3 and Xiaomi TV last week.

Jun told Barra to think about it like kung fu. “In kung fu, Lei Jun told me that speed defines everything,” he said. “So the team focuses on building the highest performance, but as quickly as possible.”

So far, that has worked very well, with Xiaomi selling seven million devices last year; it is expected to sell 20 million this year, and is profitable on about $4 billion in projected 2013 revenue. It is now valued at $10 billion.

That kind of increase, of course, means there’s a need to develop strong relationships with suppliers to get parts, while also offering consumers a differential.

That’s done at Xiaomi in a number of ways, said Barra, from offering users a way to design their phones anyway they like via themes, to sending designers and engineers around the country to watch how the phones are used by customers, to listening more carefully to their feedback.

“The defining characteristic of Xiaomi is that in its DNA is a focus on users,” he said. “Every question, every piece of feedback, gets a response, and a significant number of new features were suggested by customers.”

The goal, said Barra, is to wow them with a quality product at low prices, and then get them to use Xiaomi as an even more robust operating system for their digital life.

“There is no question the phone business is very low margin today, but they want to get to a place where they can sell the device at cost and then sell high-margin services to make that phone experience even better,” said Barra.

That’s easier said than done, especially as Xiaomi moves into more markets. While he would not get into specifics about what products he hopes to first move abroad, that’s why Barra said he would be focused on more rapidly developing ones first.

“I think that’s the sweet spot for Xiaomi — places like India, Russia, Indonesia, Latin America, Thailand,” he said. “It’s where the equation of quality and affordability works, because it’s in those markets you can replicate what the company has done in China.”

Still, Barra knows that Xiaomi has to also rate in the “trend-setting countries,” like the U.S. and Europe.

In other words, it is a big world out there to conquer, one Barra is keen to take on.

“The aspiration for the founders is that Xiaomi will become a global company that happens to be in China,” he said. “If I do my job right, in a few years, the world will be talking about Xiaomi in the same way that they talk about Google and Apple today.”

But, first things first. Barra starts in October, though he appeared onstage with Jun at the launch of its Mi3 and Xiaomi TV last week in Beijing.

He’ll be moving full-time to the Chinese capital soon. To prepare, Barra is just starting to learn Chinese, a task he already finds daunting. “The four tones are hard to learn,” he said. “It’s going to be a challenge.”

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20130912/exclusive-hugo-barra-talks-about-his-future-at-xiaomi-and-why-he-left-google/feed/0Let’s Call the Samsung Galaxy Mega “Phablet” What It Should Be: A Tablethttp://allthingsd.com/20130909/lets-call-the-samsung-galaxy-mega-phablet-what-it-should-be-a-tablet/
http://allthingsd.com/20130909/lets-call-the-samsung-galaxy-mega-phablet-what-it-should-be-a-tablet/#commentsMon, 09 Sep 2013 13:00:17 +0000http://allthingsd.com/?p=356577The new Samsung Galaxy Mega smartphone isn’t just a phone. It also doubles as a Frisbee, a George Foreman grill, a car battery and a flying saucer.

I kid, I kid. But really: The Mega is big. It measures 6.6 inches by 3.5 inches by 0.3 inch, weighs just over seven ounces, and has a 6.3-inch display. For comparison’s sake, the iPhone 5 is 4.87 inches by 2.31 inches by .30-inch, and weighs just under four ounces.

The Mega is currently available in the U.S. for $150 with a two-year contract through AT&T. While Sprint and U.S. Cellular are confirmed carrier partners, they’re not offering the phone just yet. The Mega is also being rolled out in other countries, including Europe and Russia.

I’ve been using the Android-based, LTE-compatible Galaxy Mega for the past week, carrying the mostly plastic phone with me everywhere. I will be somewhat relieved when the flatbed truck arrives next week to pick it up and transport it back to Samsung.

In all seriousness, it’s just too large for a phone. It is nearly the size of my face. It felt awkward in the hand. I couldn’t carry it with me while walking, jogging, or bike riding, without bringing a purse or backpack.

People I interacted with in passing — a woman at a coffee shop, a man at a mattress store — couldn’t help but comment on how big it is. (It can also be used as a mattress pad.) A few colleagues joked that anyone holding it immediately appears as though they’ve lost weight.

It could be said large phones are coming into vogue. They are sleeker and better overall than they were in the days of the Dell Streak, which AllThingsD’s Walt Mossberg likened to holding a piece of toast up to the face. Ever since Samsung effectively launched the “phablet” category — a style of phone so large it’s like a small tablet — with the release of its first, 5.8-inch Galaxy Note smartphone in 2011, others have hopped on board.

There are the LG G2, the Huawei Ascend Mate and the Sony Xperia Z Ultra, to name a few other giants. Apple has been reported to be working on a larger iPhone.

Samsung has even introduced phablets of varying sizes: The good-looking Note II measures a solid six inches by three inches, and the just-announced Note III will have an even larger display.

So, why the 6.6-inch Mega? Samsung says it is meant to be an “ideal hybrid handset for those who want to experience smartphone portability with the immersive experience of a tablet.”

I liked the Mega when I was using as just that: A tablet. In those instances, it didn’t seem so cumbersome. I read books and watched videos on it before bed, while getting a haircut and while sitting at a cafe. I checked email on it, and browsed through Twitter, Facebook and Instagram feeds. Basically, I liked it when I used it as I would my iPad mini or Kindle Fire tablet, which measure 7.9 inches and 7.0 inches, respectively.

Let’s say the Mega hybrid does appeal to you as a smartphone. It’s still pretty midrange, lacking some of the key features of its Note sibling.

I’ll focus on its good features first.

To start, at $150 with a two-year plan, it is half the price of the Note II through the same carrier. The LG G2 is $200 down with a two-year contract. So the Mega could be considered a bargain phablet.

Its battery life is good. It got me through nearly two full days of use, with the phone’s power saver turned off and the display set to about 75 percent of full brightness.

It offers some of the same software features as its Samsung sibs, such as S Voice voice commands, S Translator and Air View, which lets you hover your finger over emails to read the text without actually opening it.

It also has a TV-controlling app called WatchOn that utilizes the phone’s built-in infrared blaster (the Samsung Galaxy S4 has this, too). I was able to change the channels on the TV in my hotel room using the Mega.

Also, the Mega gives great sound, which was especially useful when I was using it as a portable navigation device in the car. And call quality was good. At least people on the other end of the call can’t see how ridiculous you look with the phone against your face.

The large screen, for me, meant fewer fat-finger incidents when I was writing emails and sending text messages.

Now for the parts that make this a midrange phone: Its 1280 by 720p HD LCD display isn’t quite as brilliant as other premium smartphones out there. For many people this won’t be noticeable, but when you hold it up next to a really nice display you can see the difference.

It has a 1.7GHz quad-core processor, and the phone feels sluggish at times. It’s running on Google Android 4.2.2, which is fine, but it’s not the newest version of the operating system.

While it has some interesting software, it doesn’t have all of Samsung’s bewildering array of add-on apps, and it doesn’t work with a stylus the way the Note smartphones do.

Its camera specs are essentially the same as in earlier Samsung models — an eight-megapixel rear camera and a 1.9-MP front camera — though it does have a variety of shooting modes, geo-tagging and face-tag options in photos, as well as “album view” in the phone’s photo gallery.

Lastly, and most importantly, there’s just the feel of it. It’s difficult to operate with just one hand. It certainly didn’t fit in my pockets, and when I asked two men with regular-fitting jeans to try it out, it stuck out the top of their pockets, too.

It’s hard not to feel, as you’re holding it up to your ear, like you’ve somehow been transported back to the early days of cellular phones, when the phones dwarfed people’s faces.

Samsung is throwing a variety of shapes and sizes out there right now to attempt to satisfy every consumer. The Mega feels like an experiment. As a smartphone, it’s hard to see where it fits — literally and otherwise.

Well, it only cost $7.17 billion, but Microsoft now has a pretty obvious candidate to lead the company as soon as CEO Steve Ballmer vacates the seat he said he would leave within the year: Nokia CEO Stephen Elop.

But it seems clear that the acquisition puts the former president of Microsoft’s business division in the front of the line to take over the software giant, ahead of several internal candidates and a whole lot of external ones. In fact, Elop is both external and internal.

While Elop has critics who say he did not fix Nokia or much of anything else in his long career in tech, others are likely to point to a pedigree that would also make him the favorite here (and at British bookmaker Ladbrokes already). This will doubtlessly be much-debated over the next weeks and months, as the CEO process moves to its conclusion.

But, unless co-founder and former CEO Bill Gates decides to bust a move — and he will not — it looks like this race is Elop’s to lose at this moment. That could certainly change, as we learn more about Elop’s qualifications.

I met Elop almost five years ago and was struck by the fact that he was the only exec at the company at the time who would publicly talk about how the software giant had gotten the “open” religion and was becoming “the most interoperable company in the world.”

At the time, I wrote: “I am still not sure about Microsoft, but one thing’s for sure: Elop has turned out to be one of the most interoperable of tech execs.”

Along with his stint running that powerful franchise at Microsoft, he had been COO of Juniper Networks and CEO of Macromedia, which was acquired under his tenure by Adobe.

His jump to the Finland telecom giant was a big one, given how far Nokia’s star had fallen in the mobile market, with the fast growth of the Apple iPhone and the Google Android mobile operating system.

He’s had a roller-coaster ride since then, of course, including knitting himself to Microsoft in a major partnership, and trying to turn Nokia’s fortunes around. It has been rocky, to say the least, as he has yet to bring the company back to any kind of healthy health.

While he did not start the fire, of course, selling to Microsoft is perhaps the move of someone who knew that it was an unwinnable battle without bigger hoses of money, talent and more.

Did I mention that Elop also has five kids — including triplets?

But why don’t you listen to him instead?

Here’s a video interview I did with him in 2009, when he was at Microsoft:

And here is a cool video Elop ordered up — although it was dreamed up by others — while at Microsoft, as part of an “Envisioning” series, which sketched out a world of smartphones, touchscreens everywhere, and a whole lot of innovative interacting:

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20130902/stephen-elop-is-now-microsoft-ceo-candidate-to-beat/feed/0Why HTC is Making a Mobile Operating Systemhttp://allthingsd.com/20130828/why-htc-is-making-a-mobile-operating-system/
http://allthingsd.com/20130828/why-htc-is-making-a-mobile-operating-system/#commentsWed, 28 Aug 2013 14:05:36 +0000http://allthingsd.com/?p=354238Making a smartphone operating system is a lot of fuss. There’s a lot of work involved, and for anyone who’s not Apple Inc., there’s no guarantee that it will actually convince anyone to buy your phone over a standard Android one.

HTC was the No. 1 brand of smartphone in the U.S. in 2010; now it’s not even in the top three. So why is Taiwan’s HTC Corp.making an in-house operating system specifically for Chinese consumers?

There’s a lot of reasons, but few have much to do strictly with supply and demand.

Yahoo is just starting the analyst call of its Q2 earnings, which were pretty lackluster. But CEO Marissa Mayer, who is awfully good at this kind of thing, has ginned up the excitement nonetheless, deciding to now broadcast the event live over the Internet via video, rather than over a more typical audio link.

2:01 pm: Woah! Although I have been watching television since Richard Nixon was president, this video earnings call idea is pretty cool. Why has it not been done before? (It will be done again next week, as Netflix CEO Reed Hasting grabs his 15 minutes.)

Thus, as soon as the legal disclaimer was over, it was Mayer and CFO Ken Goldman sitting at a news desk, in a sort of “Good Afternoon, Yahoo!” situation.

Because it is not exactly pertinent to comment on how anyone looks, I decided to not do so — except to say that Goldman was sporting a very nice oxford shirt.

Mayer’s first words were delivered a bit stiffly, but she was doing okay pretty quickly on reading the prepared script and trying to make it seem fresh. In Silicon Valley, she is a well-known over-preparer and, clearly, she has done that here.

She showed off some slides about how the company is growing its page views, pointing to mobile growth as the key driver. That is in contrast to recent stats from comScore, which does not reflect the claimed mobile growth, but does tell a story of declining Web usage at some key Yahoo properties over the last year.

Mayer then began to reel off the various accomplishments she has notched since she got to the troubled Internet giant last July.

From lots of acquisitions (mobile team up by a factor of six, she said) to better employee morale to attracting more entrepreneurial talent, Mayer called it a “super-charged Yahoo.”

Sounds like the company on muscle enhancers, which was her point, I think.

“As I hit my first-year anniversary, it is clear we are into our second sprint,” said Mayer, mixing the metaphors.

2:14 pm: Now it was over to Goldman, who apparently did not like to look at the red light on the camera, even if his life depended on it.

He reeled off a lot of numbers, noting that the balance sheet at Yahoo is strong, with $4.8 billion in cash and securities. A lot of what Goldman was going over had already been in the press release, but it was nice to see him actually read it off.

That is, until he got to the revenue slide for the company. It was not impressive in any way, showing a decided lack of growth all over the place.

Goldman said that Yahoo was trying to make a “meaningful” attempt to fix that. “We have a lot of confidence in our business, but that has yet to translate into revenue growth,” he also added, pointing out the very obvious.

He still looked a little pained, but seemed to rally with the search slide, even as he was trying to figure out a way to not insult the company’s partnership with Microsoft in the area.

Number of paid clicks was up nicely, 21 percent, although price per click was down eight percent.

Still, it was a whole lot better than display. “Our display business was challenged,” said Goldman, with another obviously obvious observation.

2:23 pm: For example: Price per ad was down, number of ads sold was down (“just two percent,” said Goldman, as if this could possibly be a good thing).

It looks like international revenue is part of the problem, down across the world. The Americas market was up.

Goldman continued on without any affect whatsoever, except for his pronounced New England accent, which is kind of what I want in a CFO.

I will be honest: Goldman’s number-rattling soon started to wear on me, so I briefly considered switching over to watch “House of Cards” on Netflix. Kevin Spacey could make “non-GAAP operating income” seem exciting — of this, I am sure.

2:29 pm: It was soon back to Mayer, who was now going for a more serious tone and look. She showed off her “chain reaction of growth” slide again that is apparently a virtuous circle of fantastic (if it works, that is).

Then, she moved into the specifics.

She said she wanted Yahoo search to be better, but graded her mobile progress to be an “A.” Can you grade yourself? Yes, you can, if you are CEO with an exclusive earnings show on Yahoo Finance.

“Yahoo’s future is mobile,” she then said.

Then, quick as a wink, it was onto display, which has become the ugly ducking at Yahoo, downgraded from its former status as a swan.

“We have to do a much better job here,” said Mayer. Again: Obvi!

Onto video — Mayer really had a knack of keeping things moving — which she said was also important.

Blogging site Tumblr was also a highlight, she said, but was unspecific, except to throw in trendy phrases like “native ads.”

2:34 pm: Finally, it was onto Q&A.

Suddenly, we have lost video! I am bereft as this is the heh-heh part of the show, where Wall Street analysts show just how tethered they are to the company execs’ good will and not investors’ best interests.

Wait, it’s back. Phew!

Mayer suddenly became much more interactive and comfortable onscreen, answering the first question about video looking a lot like a professional pundit.

(I was just noticing the giant Yahoo mug next to her, which riveted me for no good reason, except for its freakishly enormous size.)

The next question was on the guidance, which Yahoo had lowered earlier. The questioner wanted to know more, as well as how the company was going to monetize the next pile of money coming soon from Yahoo’s Alibaba Group asset with minimal tax impact.

Mayer noted that Tumblr, whose non-revenue will be non-included in the next quarter, will not matter to growth as yet. Non-revenue-producing companies bought for $1 billion usually do not.

Goldman then noted that he has the best tax minds looking into how to get that mountain of money from China to Yahoo without Uncle Sam getting too much of a taste.

The next questioner wanted some explanation about the depressing display fall off. Mayer said she was working on it. She clearly knew she cannot change the results and did not try to, although shaking her head in understanding did make it feel better.

At this point, I decide that this video thing was genius, although I suspect there are very few CEOs who will be able to pull this off. It’s kind of like “Network,” but for geeks.

2:43 pm: Onto a question about Microsoft, as well as if there have been any benefits from Yahoo’s sales reorg under Henrique De Castro, who has got to be feeling the pressure due to the display disaster.

Goldman did not bite on Microsoft, which other Yahoos have done in the past. Mayer said the vertical set-up for advertising sales was better and “typical across industries.”

The next question was about M&A and its revenue potential. As most know, Yahoo has been on a tear in that department, buying 16 companies over the last year.

Mayer called them mostly “tuck-in acquisitions,” done for hiring talent more than anything else. Tumblr is, she noted, strategic, which is different.

She promised more of the small purchases, which means it was time to cue the cheering on Sand Hill Road among the VC set, who can now continue to bail out of some of their kookier investments.

Another question on new ad formats, which evoked not much of an answer by Mayer. But Goldman was now starting to feel good on video and noted that “we, as a team, are very, very focused on our original expectations for this year.”

2:51 pm: The questions continued and I suddenly wished that we could see video of the Wall Street analysts, too. It be like a reality show — “Real Stockpickers of Wall Street.”

This reverie prevented me from paying mind to a question about some technical ad issue.

Finally, a good question came about breaking down the stats Mayer briefly showed off on page views. Let’s be clear, Mayer has been deft since she got to Yahoo about presenting the data that she wants rather than what others want and also what might be helpful to grokking what is happening inside Yahoo. Thus, no deets for anyone, except to say it’s all going up!

Then another decent query about whether Yahoo should be more deeply embedded with mobile leaders. Unlike Google and Apple, Yahoo does not have a smartphone platform or operating system, but Mayer said she had no partnerships to announce today.

Next, a content question about what maximizes the value of Yahoo. Mayer noted she was on the side of content partnerships, rather than Yahoo making its own original programming, a debate that has gone on at the company since the dawn of time.

A video sales question. I was flagging here. Where is Kevin Spacey when you need him!?! Also, that Yahoo mug seems to have grown larger as the earnings cavalcade of details has continued. Could it have hurt to have a giant purple Yahoo exclamation point dance across the stage at this point?

Next, a question about Tumblr and the immersive search experience. Mayer, who is a search expert from her time as an exec at Google, went all wonk here, reeling off numbers. But changes to improve Yahoo’s declining business here is not baked yet, she concluded.

Mayer, who never lacks for aggressively cute gimmicks, finally closed by doing the Summly version of the Q2 report, as she had in a previous quarter. But, if truth be told, her hour-long show was much more entertaining.

“We hope you have enjoyed our video presentation,” said Mayer, delivering the line like a pro. Unfortunately, Goldman was not paying attention to the last cue, but quickly piped up, after a sharp sideways glance from his boss, like a digital update of Ed McMahon.

Hiyo, if you will, for the Internet age.

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20130716/liveblogging-yahoo-q2-earnings-now-in-living-color/feed/0With Windows 8.1, Microsoft Makes Some Asked-For Fixeshttp://allthingsd.com/20130626/with-windows-8-1-microsoft-makes-some-fixes/
http://allthingsd.com/20130626/with-windows-8-1-microsoft-makes-some-fixes/#commentsWed, 26 Jun 2013 16:00:19 +0000http://allthingsd.com/?p=336809Microsoft’s Build developer conference officially kicks off today in San Francisco, with CEO Steve Ballmer delivering the keynote address. Much of the three-day event will focus on courting developers and explaining how they fit into a new world that has seen Microsoft go from a software company to a software and hardware company. But another big part of Build will be the release of a preview version of Windows 8.1.

Launched eight months ago, support for Windows 8, both on the consumer and the developer side, hasn’t exactly been strong. But Microsoft is looking to address some of the early criticisms of its overhauled operating system with Windows 8.1.

I got a chance to see what’s in the works at a media event yesterday. Below, you’ll find five of the major features that are coming to Windows 8.1, which will be released later this year. You can also check out the gallery of Windows 8.1 screenshots at the end of this post to see what else is new. If you like what you see or can’t wait till then, you can download Windows 8.1 Preview now from the Windows Store.

Start Screen

With Windows 8.1, Microsoft is giving users a lot more say in how they customize their Start and Lock screens.

For one, you can now decide which apps you want pinned to the Start screen. With Windows 8, whenever you downloaded a new app, it was automatically pinned to your Start screen, which isn’t ideal since some apps are less important than others. Now, Windows 8.1 installs them directly to the Apps page, where you can pick which ones to pin to the Start screen. You can select multiple apps at once, and choose if you want them displayed as a small or big tile.

Windows 8.1 also offers support for animated background images. This reminded me of the live wallpapers on Android smartphones, and is more of a vanity feature than anything. Perhaps more useful is the fact that the Lock screen can now display images from your own photo library.

One other thing about the Lock screen: You can now activate the camera and accept incoming Skype video calls directly from Lock screen without having to unlock it first and launch the appropriate app.

Finally — and this should bring a smile to all those who miss the old Windows — Microsoft has added the Start button back to desktop screen. It doesn’t offer exactly the same functionality of the Start button you might be used to, but it does give you access to features like search, control panel, task manager and the ability to shut down or restart your computer. You can also boot directly to desktop view, the Start screen, Apps screen or a specific app.

Smart Search

According to Microsoft, more than 20 billion searches are conducted on PCs in the U.S. every month. This includes Web searches, file searches and people searching within apps, so in redesigning the search function, the company wanted to create something that could do it all.

Now when you look up something using the Smart Search function, it brings up what Microsoft calls a search hero. This page brings together Web results from Bing, information about the entity, deep links within apps on the PC, related searches, results within the Windows Store and more all in one place.

Jensen Harris, Microsoft’s director of program management for the Windows user experience, demoed the function by looking up the term “San Francisco,” and Smart Search returned with a myriad of resources, including websites (along with previews of the page), maps and weather information. Tapping on the weather automatically launched the weather app, which showed an animated view of the current conditions and upcoming forecast. A single swipe to the left returns you to the search result page.

In another example, a search for Beyonce brought up a link to her bio (via Wikipedia), news articles and a list of her top songs, with the ability to stream tracks from Xbox Music with a single tap.

Xbox Music

Speaking of Xbox Music, it is now organized around your music collection in Windows 8.1. Before, it was organized around helping you discover new music. “While that’s important, we thought it would probably be better if you could just play your music in two clicks instead of six clicks,” said Harris. “So, it’s been vastly redesigned to make it easy to play the music you care about.”

The app also includes a new Radio feature where you can create a new artist station and listen to their music, with no need for a subscription or Xbox Music pass.

Multitasking and Windowing

One of the problems with Windows 8 is that the apps weren’t optimized for all screen sizes, something Harris readily admitted. “It is true that Windows 8 modern apps were not a good match for large screens,” he said. “We designed Windows 8 and modern apps for 10-, 11-, 12-inch screens, but a 27-inch screen is just only being able to see one thing at a time, which is not the most productive way of doing things.”

With Windows 8.1, Microsoft has made improvements for better multitasking and more robust windowing. You can now open up to four apps on the screen at once (previously, you could have two windows side by side). The number will depend on the resolution of your screen, but at least now you have the ability to resize each window any way you want. You can also have one app automatically open another app side by side. So, for example, if you are reading an email with photo attachments, you can click on the file to open the image viewer in the right pane while still being able to see the message on the left.

New Windows Store

Last but not least, the Windows Store gets a major redesign. With Windows 8, much of the information about the apps sat behind tabs, so Microsoft has flattened the layout: Now you can see all the details up front. It also allows for better app discovery with new apps located front and center, and recommended apps based on what you’ve downloaded and searched for.

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20130626/with-windows-8-1-microsoft-makes-some-fixes/feed/0Thomas Penfield Jackson, Judge in Microsoft Antitrust Case, Dead at 76http://allthingsd.com/20130616/thomas-penfield-jackson-judge-in-microsoft-antitrust-case-dead-at-76/
http://allthingsd.com/20130616/thomas-penfield-jackson-judge-in-microsoft-antitrust-case-dead-at-76/#commentsSun, 16 Jun 2013 20:42:57 +0000http://allthingsd.com/?p=332858Thomas Penfield Jackson, the federal judge who in 2000 branded software giant Microsoft a predatory monopolist that should be split in two, only to see his ruling reversed on appeal, has died of cancer complications at the age of 76, according to an obituary in the New York Times. An appeals court set aside his ruling in part because of interviews he gave to journalists in which he explained his views. Microsoft later settled the case and the government decided not to seek the company’s breakup.
]]>http://allthingsd.com/20130616/thomas-penfield-jackson-judge-in-microsoft-antitrust-case-dead-at-76/feed/0Will Waze Be Facebook's Next Instagram?http://allthingsd.com/20130509/is-facebook-attempting-another-instragram-in-its-acquisition-effort-of-traffic-app-waze/
http://allthingsd.com/20130509/is-facebook-attempting-another-instragram-in-its-acquisition-effort-of-traffic-app-waze/#commentsThu, 09 May 2013 18:48:57 +0000http://allthingsd.com/?p=319991

As has been widely reported and according to sources we have confirmed it with, Facebook is indeed in serious talks to buy Waze for $1 billion, the social traffic application that helps drivers navigate the road with crowdsourced traffic information.

While no deal has been struck as yet, these sources said, the discussions are advanced and closely resemble the social networking giant’s lightning-fast purchase of Instagram a year ago.

The similarities do not stop there. The price is the same and is a mix of cash and stock, said sources. In addition, as Facebook has done with Instagram, Waze will be allowed to operate relatively independently within the company if the deal is struck.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently praised the purchase of Instagram, which has grown to more than 100 million active users in a short time span. More importantly, it has been a critical perceptual part of Facebook’s effort to distinguish itself in the mobile space and has added a highly engaged audience to its audience.

The news of the Waze acquisition interest by Facebook was first reported by Israel’s Calcalist. The Israeli-based company has been the subject of numerous rumors of acquisition, including by Apple and Google, neither of which seems to have panned out.

Not so here and the main question now: Why would Facebook buy a mapping company?

It’s not that much of a surprise, actually. The digital industry has moved its focus to mobile over the past few years, as users are increasingly accessing sites through their smartphones instead of desktop sites. As of Facebook’s last earnings, more than 750 million people visit Facebook via mobile device on a monthly basis.

After intense investor worry over its lack of mobile strategy caused a huge drop in its stock, Facebook quickly shifted to the idea that it needed to own the mobile experience. First, as has been reported by AllThingsD.com previously, that was going to be a proper phone. Then, abandoning that effort, the company mulled creating its own operating system. Finally, it settled on Home, essentially a Facebook-ified version of the Google Android mobile operating system that can be downloaded to run on many Android-enabled phones.

Clearly, Facebook has wanted to own the mobile experience without doing the intense work and uphill fighting of creating its own hardware or building an operating system from the ground up, both of which would struggle for marketshare, just like RIM’s BlackBerry or Microsoft’s Windows Phone.

But as we’ve seen with Google and, most recently, with Apple’s iPhone, if you want to truly own a mobile operating system, you’ve got to own the maps.

Why? Well, it’s an endless treasure trove of continuously updated data directly from your users, including their locations, their habits, their preferred businesses and their travel destinations. It’s why Apple snipped off Google Maps and switched its users over to its own mapping product, despite some problems with its software. And it’s why Google spent the past decade building up its maps to lead the industry.

To avoid getting left out, Waze, in particular, makes a certain amount of sense for a Facebook buy. For years, Facebook has yammered on and on about “social from the ground up” — you can’t just build apps and services and then slap a social layer on top and then just call them social. The network, Facebook argues, doesn’t work like that.

Waze is a perfect example of social from the ground up. From the beginning, the app has relied on not only the passive input of traffic and location data from its users, but the active contribution of data like accidents, police traps and more.

In other words, Waze is based on social contributions for the greater good of others using the app. Talk about something Facebook would be into, even at the high cost of one billion dollars.

But that’s something the company is used to pulling the trigger on. It outbid Twitter for Instagram almost one year ago, in a deal that was closed over the course of a weekend. While Zuckerberg had spent a lot of time creating a relationship with its co-founder Kevin Systrom, in that instance he showed the inclination and the power to grab for what he wants and very quickly.

Facebook declined to comment, with a spokesperson saying: “We don’t comment on rumors and speculation.”

According to sources close to the situation, well-known tech exec Jon Rubinstein will be joining the board of Qualcomm, the San Diego-based chipmaker that has gotten a big boost of late for its role in the explosion of mobile devices.

Rubinstein is an interesting and logical choice for Qualcomm, having been a high-profile player for a long time in the mobile space, beginning with his work on the iPod while at Apple. After he left his last job at Hewlett-Packard last year, though, he has been very low-key.

(Update: Qualcomm confirmed the appointment in a press release.)

For Qualcomm, the selection of Rubinstein to join the board is something to watch, as he is the second exec from Silicon Valley to be tapped by the company recently. In March, Qualcomm hired tech investor Laurie Yoler as SVP of business development, making her “responsible for augmenting existing business relationships in Silicon Valley, as well as developing new strategic business opportunities for Qualcomm in the region.”

Rubinstein has even more experience here and is also familiar with a range of mobile efforts over the years, some of which were successful and others not so much, from his work at Apple, Palm and then HP. He is also a board member of Amazon.

Aside from CEO and Chairman Paul Jacobs, Rubinstein — who has degrees in electrical engineering and computer science — will be the most technically experienced director on the 11-person board.

Qualcomm declined to comment.

Here’s a nice primer on Rubinstein by Arik Hesseldahl, in a report on his leaving HP early last year:

Best known for his work on Apple’s iconic iPod music player, Rubinstein left Apple in 2006 and joined Roger McNamee as a partner in the private equity firm Elevation Partners, following its 2007 investments in Palm.

In 2009 he replaced longtime Palm executive Ed Colligan as its CEO, and oversaw a dramatic restructuring of the company’s products, including a significant rebuild of its smartphone operating system. Gone was the legacy PalmOS that had been used in so many popular devices like the Treo that for a time competed seriously against Research In Motion’s BlackBerry.

PalmOS was replaced by WebOS, which first appeared on the Pre smartphone, then later on the Pixi and Veer devices. After HP acquired Palm, WebOS was also used on the abandoned TouchPad tablet, and is now an open-source operating system overseen by HP.

Rubinstein’s departure is no big surprise. Sources said he hadn’t been seen at HP’s offices following the decision by former CEO Léo Apotheker to get out of the business of making WebOS-based hardware. His future plans have been the subject of speculation for some time.

After HP decided to exit the WebOS hardware business, Rubinstein was assigned to a vaguely described “product innovation role” within HP’s Personal Systems Group during a management shakeup last July. It was an unusual move and one made with little explanation at the time. But sources say it was a preface to Rubinstein’s departure, one intended to lessen its PR impact when he finally left. “That ‘innovation’ gig he was given in July was his first step toward the exit,” said one source, a former Palm exec with close ties to Rubinstein.

There’s no picture of the moment when everything changed for Kevin Systrom. But if there were, it would look something like this: A lanky, very tall, dark-haired man in his late 20s sits on a bench at the Caltrain commuter station in Palo Alto, Calif. A sepia tone and weathered patina might underscore the mood of weighty contemplation.

It was early April of last year, and Systrom was waiting for his business partner, Mike Krieger, to arrive from San Francisco. Systrom had just left Mark Zuckerberg’s nearby house and was still digesting the offer that the Facebook founder and CEO had made him: To buy Instagram, the photo-sharing app that Systrom and Krieger had launched just 18 months before. The price Zuckerberg offered was $1 billion — $300 million in cash and the rest in Facebook stock, an especially generous-seeming deal on the eve of his company’s much-anticipated initial public offering.

The offer was even more impressive given Instagram’s size and age. At the time, it had just 13 employees, operating out of a cramped space in the South Park section of San Francisco. Still, the small crew had managed to attract 30 million Apple iPhone users in just a year and a half by offering a service that allowed a person to quickly upload, prettify through the use of filters and publish images to the Web for friends to see. A version for Google’s Android mobile operating system had launched the week before, attracting another million users in a single day.

What’s more, although the app generated no revenue, it had attracted so much attention from venture capitalists that the startup had nearly closed an impressive new round of funding at a wildly high valuation of $500 million. Zuckerberg had just doubled that, leaving Systrom with a lot to think about on that train-station bench.

Click. If there ever was a money shot to take for Instagram and Systrom, that was it.

(Photo by Jonas Fredwall Karlsson, used with permission by Vanity Fair)

Last week, I motored on down to Evernote’s spanking (and quite delightful) new offices in Redwood City, Calif., to talk to Phil Libin, its CEO and co-founder, about what has been happening of late at the popular note-taking software startup.

Things have recently been made more interesting with the entry of search giant Google into the sector, with a renewed competing mobile app effort called Keep (which is really a version of its older Notebook offering) for the Android mobile operating system.

Libin seemed sanguine about the move, noting that Evernote’s Android app has a much better user base than Keep. Instead, he said that the company — which has attracted about $250 million in total funding that has valued it at close to $2 billion — is more focused on bringing out new versions of Evernote, which allow a user to save text, Web links, photos and more, as well as on continuing to widen its productivity-app portfolio.

Also a priority is a recently launched premium, business-oriented version of Evernote, as well as even more international expansion, which makes up an increasingly large part of its user base of 45 million (a small number of whom currently pay to upgrade).

Libin talked about all this and more, including continuing to tout his “100-year” strategy for the company (it’s good to plan ahead!) in this video interview:

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20130410/evernotes-phil-libin-talks-about-global-expansion-google-incursion-and-more-video/feed/0Viking's Vision for a Cellphone-Free Futurehttp://allthingsd.com/20130226/vikings-vision-for-a-cellphone-free-future/
http://allthingsd.com/20130226/vikings-vision-for-a-cellphone-free-future/#commentsTue, 26 Feb 2013 16:05:47 +0000http://allthingsd.com/?p=298405A lot of people have their eyes on Google Glass. But Google isn’t the only company working on augmented-reality wearable glasses.

An Osaka, Japan-based company called Brilliant Service has developed a new operating system dubbed Viking, designed for use in glasses. The company’s goal is to completely replace the cellphone.

Built using Objective-C programming language, the OS offers only basic functions right now (phone, navigation), but will include most of the features found on smartphones today, and then some. The company also plans to open up Viking to developers, so they can write apps for the OS.

Brilliant Service showed off a prototype of Viking at Mobile World Congress, and I gave it a try to see what the future might look like.

To be clear, the company is only providing the software, not the hardware. It’s currently looking for OEM (original equipment manufacturer) partners to make the actual glasses. As such, the device I tried on was basically a mini computer soldered onto glasses. It was extremely heavy and kept slipping off my face, not to mention nearly burning my forehead.

Brilliant Service director Erika Kang assured me that the final product will be a much more elegant device.

So, back to the demo. After donning the glasses and being instructed to look down at the floor, a map appeared right at my feet, along with a compass to show which direction I was walking in. Looking up at the ceiling brought up a navigation menu, where I could then reach out in front of the glasses with my hand to select an app.

Viking creates a crude outline of your hand and fingers, so you can track your movements and see where you’re tapping.

I selected a drawing app from the menu, and I moved my hand around to paint a picture. To exit the app, I swiped my hand down.

I also tried the phone app. When there was an incoming call, a telephone icon appeared, and by making the telephone sign (or shaka sign), it transferred the call to a Bluetooth headset. To hang up, I used the same gesture.

King said these gestures is what makes Viking different from Google Glass. But while they worked just fine, I can’t imagine waving my hands in front of me like a crazy person just to use my phone.

The company plans to add voice recognition in the future, so you can simply dictate commands. It also envisions features like a virtual keyboard where you can look down at a desk and start typing. Also on the radar is a translation function where you can look at a person speaking a foreign language and see translated text right above their head.

Viking has only been in development for about a month. There’s no specific time frame of when (or if) we might see Viking-powered glasses on the streets, or how much they’ll cost. But King said the goal is to offer them at a consumer-friendly price.

There is a new smartphone coming to market, running on a new operating system. It’s an all-touch device — with no physical navigation controls and no physical keyboard — and serves as a platform for third-party apps. It’s meant to compete in a world defined by Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android phones. It’s a BlackBerry, reinvented from the ground up.

This model, called the Z10, and its operating system, called BB10, are bet-the-company moves by BlackBerry maker Research In Motion. RIM has seen its once-dominant position in the market shrivel away, especially in the U.S., since the iPhone appeared in 2007. It has tried a couple of times to drop its famous physical keyboards for touchscreens, but those projects failed, partly because the old BlackBerry operating system was primarily designed to handle corporate email and was a poor platform for app developers.

The BlackBerry Z10 comes in black and white and looks very different from past BlackBerrys.

Now, RIM is hoping that BB10 can change all that, so much so it’s changing its name to BlackBerry. The new OS, which is the most important part of the product, isn’t an evolution of the old BlackBerry platform. It is a clean break. Its user interface is so different that it will seem foreign to longtime BlackBerry users. And the first phone to use it, the Z10, looks much more like its rivals than like traditional BlackBerrys.

I’ve been testing the Z10 for about a week and decided to approach it as a new entry from a new company, because it is so different from past BlackBerrys. Overall, it worked fine in my tests, but I found it a work in progress. I liked some things a lot, including the way BlackBerry has designed its new virtual keyboard and camera, and the way it gathers all your messages into a single Hub. But it will launch with just a fraction of the apps available from its competitors, and is missing some very popular titles. It also lacks its own cloud-based ecosystem for storing and sharing files, like Apple’s iCloud or Google Drive. And there are other missing or lagging features.

Fervent BlackBerry fans might shun the Z10 for its lack of a physical keyboard, while fervent iPhone and Android fans might shun it for its small selection of apps and lack of native cloud services.

BlackBerry is formally announcing the Z10 and BB10 this week and it will go on sale in some countries almost immediately. In the U.S., all four major carriers are expected to sell the phone, for $199, according to BlackBerry, but the company estimates it won’t be available until March.

A second BB10 phone, the Q10, due in April, may be an easier transition for BlackBerry addicts, since it will have a physical keyboard. But BlackBerry sees typing on glass as its future and will be emphasizing the touch model.

Hardware

The Z10 is basically a chunky plastic slab, midway in size and weight between the tall, slim iPhone 5 and the bigger, wider crop of new Android models. I found it felt good in the hand. Its high-resolution 4.2-inch screen is a bit bigger than the iPhone’s 4-inch display, though much smaller than many newer Android screens, which are creeping toward 5 inches. The rear camera is the same eight megapixels as on the iPhone and Android models like Google’s flagship Nexus 4. It comes in black and white, and has only one memory configuration — 16 gigabytes (the base on the iPhone) — but the memory can be expanded by up to 32 more gigabytes using a removable card. Unlike many phones today, it has a removable battery.

User Interface

The Z10’s virtual keyboard is fast and easy to use, partly because of its predictive typing.

You unlock the phone by swiping up from the bottom border. The phone displays the last screen you were on. A similar swipe from any screen will take you to the home position, which displays minimized versions of up to eight apps currently running, with each displayed as a large rectangle showing some information from the app, such as weather or appointments. These are called Active Frames. From there, swiping to the left takes you through screens of app icons, similar to those on Apple and Android phones. Swiping from the bottom minimizes any open app into an Active Frame. I found these gestures easy to use and remember.

BlackBerry Hub

Although it isn’t technically the home screen, BlackBerry expects most users to spend most of their time in the device’s unified inbox, called BlackBerry Hub. To reach the Hub, you swipe right from the display of running apps, or, if you’re on any other screen, you swipe up and to the right in a curved gesture from the bottom border — that one takes a little practice.

The Hub contains emails from all the accounts you’ve set up on the phone, as well as text messages, messages from the company’s BlackBerry Messenger service, and even updates from Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Unlike on older BlackBerrys, there aren’t separate icons for various email accounts; they are visible only via the Hub. But you can swipe right from the Hub to see each account and view only its contents. If you swipe down while in the Hub, you see upcoming calendar events.

Keyboard

The Z10 keyboard is the best and fastest out-of-the-box virtual keyboard I’ve used. Master BlackBerry thumb typists might not find it as fast as the traditional physical keyboard, but, for a one-finger typist like me, it was faster and more accurate than either the native keyboards on the iPhone or Android. This is partly because it features predictive typing. It displays words that are likely to come next right above the rows of letters, and lets you flick these words upward into the text you’re composing. It learns what mistakes you typically make in hitting letters, and adjusts. And it learns words and abbreviations you frequently use, even proper names.

Apps

BlackBerry claims it will have 70,000 apps at launch. Others are promised shortly afterward. That sounds like a lot, but Apple is approaching 800,000 and Android has over 700,000. BlackBerry’s app store, called BlackBerry World, includes—or will soon include — some common and standard apps, such as Facebook, Twitter, Angry Birds, The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and Major League Baseball. But at launch, it will be missing Instagram, Pandora, Spotify, NPR, Google Maps and Netflix, among many others.

Work and Personal

If you use a corporate network controlled by an IT department, and want to keep your work and personal apps separate, BB10 has a simple way to do it. You just swipe down and press a button called “Personal” or “Work” and the apps, and even the background, change. However, email and calendar entries are still intermingled.

Camera, Voice and Battery Life

The camera has a cool feature called TimeShift that allows you to adjust individual faces in a group shot to get different views of them — say, smiling instead of frowning — by capturing additional images just before or after the snapshot. Voice calls were excellent. I didn’t do a formal battery test, but in my moderate to heavy use of the phone, I found it didn’t last as long on a charge as the iPhone 5, and began to get pretty low by late afternoon. It would last some people an entire day, but not everyone.

Browser

I found the browser adequate, but noticeably slower than the standard Apple and Android browser, even on a fast Wi-Fi network. However, unlike on many phones today, the browser supports Adobe Flash on some pages, if you manually enable it.

Data Speeds

The Z10 is capable of using LTE networks, the most consistently speedy available. But on my test unit, which was running on AT&T, I could never achieve download speeds of more than a paltry two megabits per second, even though the phone said it was on LTE, which typically sports download speeds of 15, 20 or even more Mbps. BlackBerry had no explanation for this anomaly.

Video Chats

In BB10, BlackBerry has added a video-chat feature similar to Apple’s FaceTime. In my tests, this worked well.

Cloud

Unlike Android or Apple devices, BB10 has no built-in cloud system for syncing or storing photos or other data. BlackBerry says that the third-party cloud app Box, which is mainly used by corporate customers, can do some automatic syncing, but it says it plans to work on its own system over time.

Other Downsides

There is no native ability to print from the Z10. And in some cases, I found that common controls required too many steps. For instance, to quickly get to the top or bottom of a long list of messages in the Hub — something the old BlackBerry did with ease — you have to go to the menu. BlackBerry says it is working on making that quicker.

Bottom Line

The Z10 and BB10 represent a radical reinvention of the BlackBerry. The hardware is decent and the user interface is logical and generally easy to use. I believe it has a chance of getting BlackBerry back into the game, if the company can attract a lot more apps.

A comparison table of the BlackBerry Z10 with its competition in the smartphone marketplace.

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20130130/blackberry-reinvents-itself-to-compete-with-all-touch-smartphones/feed/0iPhone Users Rack Up the Highest Carrier Billshttp://allthingsd.com/20130130/wireless_bills_by_os_android_ios/
http://allthingsd.com/20130130/wireless_bills_by_os_android_ios/#commentsWed, 30 Jan 2013 12:01:35 +0000http://allthingsd.com/?p=289942The iPhone may command a higher carrier subsidy than its typical Android rival. It may eat into operators’ profit margins when sales volumes spike after the debut of a new model. But it also generates more in carrier fees than any other smartphone.

According to new data shared with AllThingsD by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP), the average monthly carrier bill of the typical iPhone user is the highest in the smartphone market. IPhone owners spend more on wireless fees than owners of any other handset, be they Android, BlackBerry or Windows Phone.

Almost 60 percent of the iPhone users CIRP polled during October-December 2012 spent more than $100 per month on their wireless plan, with 10 percent spending $200 or more. Just 6 percent spent $50 or less; for Android users in that category, the percentage was double. And only 53 percent of Android users fell into the “over $100 per month” category, with 7 percent landing in the “over $200 per month” category.

Not vast differences, but significant — particularly when carriers like AT&T and Verizon are activating millions of smartphones per quarter.

Why do iPhone customers spend more?

“We think it has to do with their data plans and carriers, rather than their usage habits,” CIRP co-founder Michael Levin explained. “They are all on expensive data plans, unlike Android users, some of which are on prepaid or unsubsidized plans with regional carriers.”

That said, just because iPhone users on average spend more on their wireless plans doesn’t necessarily mean that the carriers are making more money.

“Given the subsidies on iPhones, the carriers are working hard to make their money back during the course of the contract,” said CIRP’s Josh Levitz. “With the exception of perhaps the hottest Android phones, we think the subsidies on Android phones are lower, so the carriers make more money even with slightly lower per-subscriber revenue.”

Incidentally, as part of this survey, CIRP also took a look at consumer retention by operating system and found that, in terms of smartphone stickiness, iOS and Android are the stickiest by far. For the survey period, the research house noted that 88 percent of the iPhone activations it charted were from prior iPhone users, while 64 percent of Android device activations were from prior Android owners. Just 7 percent of Blackberry users and 9 percent of Windows Phone users reported sticking with those operating systems.

The former Microsoft exec turned gaming entrepreneur didn’t rent out a hotel ballroom or hire Big Bird or Maroon 5 to get the attention of the press. In fact, as far as we know, Valve’s only presence at the show was a small private booth for meetings, and an interview with The Verge.

But since many covet Newell and his quirky company, when he speaks, everyone listens as if it were videogame gospel.

Valve is popular for producing mega hits like Half-Life and the Portal game series. It also gets huge props for Steam, its consumer-focused PC games-distribution platform (referred to by the rest of us as an app store).

This preamble is to help you better understand why it was a big deal when Newell said yesterday that Valve is building its own hardware that will essentially be a gaming and media hub for your whole house.

This isn’t some half-baked Kickstarter idea. With an estimated valuation of $3 billion, and more than 50 million users (in comparison, Xbox Live has 40 million), Valve has the money, the distribution system and the clout to try something outrageous.

And what Newell described to The Verge yesterday is a little out there.

He confirmed that the company is building a “Steam Box,” which will be a game and entertainment server for the home that can be used by eight TVs and eight controllers at one time.

For the average consumer who likes to stream Netflix to their TV, this will come off as pretty abstract stuff, especially when you hear more details.

First, it’s going to be built on the Linux OS, which is not exactly mainstream. Second, if not done absolutely correctly, hooking it up to multiple TVs sounds like a networking nightmare. Third, Valve says it will be inventing new types of controllers “that use a lot of biometric data.”

In July, Newell was interviewed onstage in Seattle, where he elaborated on this topic. He said touchscreens are “short-term,” and that your tongue is one of the best mechanical systems to your brain. “I don’t think tongue input will happen, but I do think we will have bands on our wrists, and you’ll be doing something with your hands, which are really expensive.”

In other words, we’re talking really sci-fi stuff here.

Generally, what’s interesting about Newell’s desire to build something on Linux is that he believes it is a hedge against Windows 8. Increasingly, operating systems have become locked down, where the OS maker, like Apple, owns the software distribution on the device, like the iPhone and the App Store. That’s happening on laptops and computers, as well, which is a threat to Steam.

On multiple occasions, the former Microsoft executive has disclosed his disdain for the software giant’s new operating system.

In the interview with The Verge, Newell put it bluntly: “Windows 8 was like this giant sadness. It just hurts everybody in the PC business … When I started using it I was like ‘oh my god …’ I find [Windows 8] unusable.”

Newell can say pretty much whatever he wants. Valve is a privately held company with few or no investors, so there’s no pressure for a public offering or a sale. Clearly, if he wants to preannounce something, he will.

In addition to laying out some of the Steam Box’s specs and confirming its existence, he also discussed pricing. The boxes, which will be built by partners in some cases, will have three tiers, he said. The low-end device will start at $99. A midrange device could cost around $300, and the high-end device could be even pricier.

But when a Steam Box will be released remains a mystery. Presumably, to be competitive with the next generation of consoles from Microsoft and Sony, it would be expected around the end of this year.

To get some feedback on what Valve’s plans mean, I asked Pete Hawley, co-founder and chief product officer of Red Robot Labs, what he thinks. Although he’s creating a location-based games platform today, he previously worked at PlayStation, and just a month ago told me during a conversation that he thinks Valve will win the next console war.

“I think this news is huge,” he said. “Gabe and Valve are building something amazing here.”

Hawley also said that while the experience Newell describes today sounds futuristic, he could easily imagine the box appealing to a wide audience, ranging from everyday users who want to stream movies through a browser to the most hardcore gamers.

“The openness and ‘hackability’ is there for those core users that are more heavily engaged — the creators. I think you’ll see some users that absorb content, plugged into the TV like a traditional console,” Hawley said. “Others will run servers, create content, have their own store, push to multiple screens, etc., etc. I think its flexibility in that sense is really interesting.”

One daunting challenge, which Newell acknowledged in the interview, was getting Steam’s current content to work on Linux. This summer, Newell mentioned wanting to make it as easy as possible for the 2,500 games on Steam to run on Linux. Valve will also have to work on a way to get the content to work with a game controller. Since most of the titles today run on PCs, they use a mouse and a keyboard. As Newell told The Verge, “the problem to solve is how to interact with a Web browser, how to get all the games to support controllers, and how to make it all seamless.”

In the meantime, Valve has developed a feature called Big Picture, which allows you to connect Steam to your TV. Big Picture is designed to be used with a traditional game controller, but also supports a keyboard and mouse.

Here’s Valve’s video explaining Big Picture, which may also provide a sense of how Steam Box will eventually work: